transmitter of the good things uttered. Any one who will try to put
down the pith of a brilliant conversation within the same space, may
soon satisfy himself of the absurdity of such an hypothesis, and will
learn to appreciate Boswell's powers not only of memory but artistic
representation. Such a feat implies not only admirable quickness of
appreciation, but a rare literary faculty. Boswell's accuracy is
remarkable; but it is the least part of his merit.

The book which so faithfully reflects the peculiarities of its hero and
its author became the first specimen of a new literary type. Johnson
himself was a master in one kind of biography; that which sets forth a
condensed and vigorous statement of the essentials of a man's life and
character. Other biographers had given excellent memoirs of men
considered in relation to the chief historical currents of the time. But
a full-length portrait of a man's domestic life with enough picturesque
detail to enable us to see him through the eyes of private friendship
did not exist in the language. Boswell's originality and merit may be
tested by comparing his book to the ponderous performance of Sir John
Hawkins, or to the dreary dissertations, falsely called lives, of which
Dugald Stewart's _Life of Robertson_ may be taken for a type. The writer
is so anxious to be dignified and philosophical that the despairing
reader seeks in vain for a single vivid touch, and discovers even the
main facts of the hero's life by some indirect allusion. Boswell's
example has been more or less followed by innumerable successors; and we
owe it in some degree to his example that we have such delightful books
as Lockhart's _Life of Scott_ or Mr. Trevelyan's _Life of Macaulay_. Yet
no later biographer has been quite as fortunate in a subject; and
Boswell remains as not only the first, but the best of his class.

One special merit implies something like genius. Macaulay has given to